Creme Fraiche

Hi,

For Christmas, I bought a gallon of heavy whipping cream at Costco. I was calculating in my mind exactly how much cream I needed, then decided I was cutting it too close with a half gallon.

I also bought some Creme Fraiche while shopping at Whole Foods for my organic foods-only sister. I bought the French import rather than the Vermont vendor. In the past, I read where you could use a couple of tablespoons of Creme Fraiche as a mother in heavy cream to make additional Creme Fraiche; if its' active cultures are present. I couldn't find anything to confirm this tickle of a memory though I found plenty recommending buttermilk as a mother culture to make Creme Fraiche.

Long ago in my other life, I used to make Tvork or Farmer's Cheese with the fresh milk in Moscow. Actually, it was not so fresh milk because it had not been chilled during transportation. My Dad may drink soured milk, I cannot bring myself to do it. So I would make farmers cheese by gently warming it overnight over a very low simmering waterbath. By morning the curds separated from the whey allowing me to strain via cheesecloth.

Last night I created a waterbath on the 'controlled' simmer on my gas stove. Not trusting it completely, I also added a diffuser and plopped my remote thermometer inside. I kept the temperatures between 95-105, then I put a wide mouth canning jar with one cup cream heated to 100 degrees with a tablespoon of Creme Fraiche stirred in.

I will admit I did turn off the gas burner when I went to bed, which turned into an inadvertant blessing. I noticed our furnace had gone off as I noted our kitchen thermostat had dropped to 57 degrees! I totally slept through the middle of this cold night's furnace repair. This morning I restarted my waterbath, by early afternoon I had lovely thick Creme Fraiche.

Please note turning off the Creme Fraiche in production just makes the cultures dormant. Overheating the Creme Fraiche kills the cultures.

This bit of kitchen magic (ok, I may overstate, though I love it when stuff works like it should) motivates me to make some blini for breakfast tomorrow. Yeast meets yeast or the beneficial fungus amongst us.

Best wishes,

Cathy2,

Blini!!!!!!!!! What a great breakfast for Christmas morning! I wish I had thought of that.

Creme fraiche is one of my favorite things to make - it is so easy and so good and so verastile. I prefer to make it from scratch using light cream and creme fraiche starter which I get from NECMS. The key is selecting a really good quality light cream (or half-and-half). I avoid anything that says "ultrapasturized". The fresh, sweet, rich, tangy result beats anything from a store. I drain it to get the desired consistency to use instead of Mexican cream and Mennonite cream. Ricki Carrol's suggestions to stuff it into fresh figs or spread on hot bread are real winers.

Bill,

I very much appreciate your comments on the Blini idea. It's been quite a while since I made any, I'm looking forward to it myself.

The fresh, sweet, rich, tangy result beats anything from a store. I drain it to get the desired consistency to use instead of Mexican cream and Mennonite cream.

You must be using a very fine mesh cloth to drain it, right? I am not familiar with Mennonite cream, though I do know Mexican crema. The creme fraiche I bought was ultra thick, thicker than any sour cream I encountered. For Thanksgiving, MAG indicated she was making ice cream from creme fraiche. I don't know how the Vermont product is like, but you would need milk, cream or buttermilk to thin this French product to make it useable for ice cream making.

Ricki Carrol's suggestions to stuff it into fresh figs or spread on hot bread are real winers

Fresh figs --- Summer just seems so far away this moment. Fortunately, hot bread is easily obtainable. Thanks for the ideas.

Regards,

You must be using a very fine mesh cloth to drain it, right? I am not familiar with Mennonite cream, though I do know Mexican crema. The creme fraiche I bought was ultra thick, thicker than any sour cream I encountered.

Cathy,

I use a towel that is commonly sold in Japanese food supply stores. It is very dense weave, lintless, washable, and has some Katakana characters which probably mean "Under no circumstance should this material be used for making cheese".

A large colony of Mennonites settled in Northern Mexico and are renown throughout Mexico for their cheeses and creams. Their cream is thicker and richer than your standard crema mexicana and is perfect on tacos, enchiladas, sopes, etc.

Feliz Navidad!

Bill/SFNM

Bill/SFNM wrote:A large colony of Mennonites settled in Northern Mexico and are renown throughout Mexico for their cheeses and creams. Their cream is thicker and richer than your standard crema mexicana and is perfect on tacos, enchiladas, sopes, etc.

Feliz Navidad!

Bill/SFNM

Bill:

Do you know whether any of their crema gets shipped north? Their cheeses are, of course, to some degree available up here (or so it seems)...

I believe most (all?) of the Mexican Mennonites got booted out of Canada for not being willing to fight in Flanders' fields during the Great War...

Back to the kitchen...

Peace on earth...

Feliz Navidad etc.

A

What is the difference between Creme Fraiche and the Mexican Crema or are they interchangable ??

jlawrence01 wrote:What is the difference between Creme Fraiche and the Mexican Crema or are they interchangable ??

I've seen all kinds of cultured creams called Crema Mexicana, Mexican Table Cream, Central American Cream, Creme Fraiche, etc. There is a wide range of viscosity, richness and tang, so the "interchangability" is usually a function of availability and personal taste. I do not use creme fraiche in Mexican dishes since I can get the real thing or make it myself as described above.

Bill/SFNM

Antonius wrote:Do you know whether any of their crema gets shipped north?

A,

It definitely makes it up here to Santa Fe. It is found in the little Mexican markets that cater to the immigrants, most of whom are from Chihuahua. A guy I know who goes back home for regular visits has a standing order to bring me back an assortment of creams and cheeses which I think are fresher and better than what is sold in stores here.

Bill/SFNM

I am a sour cream fanatic -- to the point where my gravestone is likely to read "'Twas the butterfat that did him in"
I like all variations of it: Mexican crema, creme fraiche, even the low-fat versions (no, not the non-fat stuff).

So I needed some Creme Fraiche for a recipe for New Year's Eve, and local stores didn't seem to carry it*. From previous notes I'd seen, I could expect to pay $5 and up for a small jar too. So I made my own:

Hardware: Clean mason jar, plastic lid, plastic wrap, spoon, freezer
Software: 1.25C Heavy Cream (a quart we'd picked up from Costco the other day), 1Tbs Buttermilk (ordinary Dean's)

Put the cream in the jar and microwave for 30 seconds to warm it slightly. Add the buttermilk, and cover loosely with plastic wrap so it can breathe
Put the jar on the counter next to the freezer coils, where it's a little warmer. Periodically swirl the jar or stir it up, until it thickens.

In less than 24 hours, I had lightly sour, slightly nutty cream, about as thick as mexican crema (pourable with patience).
Now, I just have to restrain myself from devouring it before tomorrow night.


* OK, two of the stores I looked in were Korean groceries, but the other two ought to have had it.

Thanks for the tip. I have buttermilk and creme in the fridge right now, so this should be fun to try. What are you using it for on NYE?

For future reference, I've bought creme fraiche at Schaefers in Skokie.

The homemade stuff sounds great. For those otherwise-inclined, Whole Foods sells 2 kinds of creme fraiche. My favorite is from the Vermont Butter Company. It's a pink container, and while I can't remember the exact price, I'm relatively certain it starts with a 3 or a 4, rather than a 5 or higher.

Trader Joes also carries the Vermont Butter & Cheese Company creme fraiche (at least the one on Ontario had it maybe two weeks ago when I was in there). I believe it was $3.29 (although don't quote me on that -- could have been as high as $3.79) for an 8 oz. container. It is in my rotation of things I always buy at Trader Joes when I go there.


Edited to change # sign to $ sign.

Thanks Joel! I wasn't aware it was that easy.

dan

Wonder why they call it crème fraîche if it sits on a counter for days?

Good post. I've been doing this for a couple years now and can confidently say you don't need to do the microwave or fridge coils part - I just add 1tbs buttermilk per cup of cream set it out for somewhere between 8 and 12 hours and I have creme fraiche.

The fact you can add it to sauces w/o it breaking makes it 100% worth it IMO.

About how long will it last in the fridge? Any longer than the soonest expiration date on the cream and buttermilk?

Will certainly last longer than the expiration on the cream, since the good bacteria will crowd out most of the bad guys.

Darren72 wrote:Thanks for the tip. I have buttermilk and creme in the fridge right now, so this should be fun to try. What are you using it for on NYE?

On Sunday I made two of the four kinds of agnolotti from the French Laundry Cookbook - Fava Bean (which gets a curry emulsion sauce only containing a little creme fraiche), and Sweet Potato (which has a sauce of Beurre Monte and Creme Fraiche and Proscuitto -- talk about rich!). I'm only going to make one, and I'm leaning toward the sweet potato, but we may end up double dating with my older son, and, well, the bacon in the pasta and the prosciutto in the sauce just don't sit well with the Kosher-keeping SO.

But heck, I'm making tacos tonight, it just might get et and I'll have to start over again.

Regarding warmth: At least two of the sites online that I found on making CF said to warm the cream to 105 to start, and put it in a warm, draft-free spot. My kitchen happens to run a bit on the cold side (far, far end of the furnace run, a problem with additions), so the freezer-side countertop sounded like a good idea. Worked like a charm.

In case you do want to purchase it at the grocery store (Dominick's/Jewle/etc.), I've noticed the creme fraiche is kept in the "fancy" cheese section instead of the dairy section.

I hope you don't mind my taking this thread slightly off topic. I have never had cream fraiche and am wondering which sorts of food it is supposed to top. Thank you for the recipe for homemade cream fraiche!

Saint Pizza wrote:I hope you don't mind my taking this thread slightly off topic. I have never had cream fraiche and am wondering which sorts of food it is supposed to top. Thank you for the recipe for homemade cream fraiche!

Well, just about any place you'd use sour cream. It's not quite as thick, not quite as sour, and a more pronounced flavor of cream.

According to the French Laundry cookbook, it doesn't break when heated, like cream will, so it's good for creating sauces.

It's traditional to garnish with creme fraiche things like smoked salmon or caviar.

I'm looking for Creme Fraiche by the quart. We use to get these at a restaurant I worked at it Dallas, TX.

Any one know a retail source in Chicago?

Thanks.

Max

I've never seen creme fraiche by the quart. But it is fairly simple (and cheap) to make yourself. You combine a quart of whipping cream with 4 tablespoons of buttermilk. Let it sit for a day (on the counter) until it thickens, then refrigerate.

The crema sold in many Mexican markets is not identical to creme fraiche but is very close, and at least at the Hispanic grocery store near me (Carniceria Jimenez -- there are several, so check to see what is close to you) they sell a range of cremas in bulk, so you can get as much or as little as you like. (And at least at my CJ, they will give you samples, so you can pick the crema that matches the taste and texture you want.)

Not exactly creme fraiche, but close enough that most Mexican recipes that call for crema will say you can substitute creme fraiche.

Marketplace on Oakton makes their own "Russian Sour Cream" which, if it isn't creme fraiche, I'll eat a quart of it - no, wait, I already did over the holidays! It isn't in quarts, but I bet they'd pack up a quart for you if you asked.

Sour cream, creme, and creme fraiche are all versions of the same thing. They mainly differ in the amount of butterfat (and hence the creaminess/thickness). If you start with sour cream, or Russian sour cream (which has a higher butterfat content), you can add a little cream to it to thin it out so it is more like creme fraiche. Note that sour cream is the more likely to curdle when heated.

Cathy2 wrote:Hi,

For Christmas, I bought a gallon of heavy whipping cream at Costco. I was calculating in my mind exactly how much cream I needed, then decided I was cutting it too close with a half gallon.

I also bought some Creme Fraiche while shopping at Whole Foods for my organic foods-only sister. I bought the French import rather than the Vermont vendor. In the past, I read where you could use a couple of tablespoons of Creme Fraiche as a mother in heavy cream to make additional Creme Fraiche; if its' active cultures are present. I couldn't find anything to confirm this tickle of a memory though I found plenty recommending buttermilk as a mother culture to make Creme Fraiche.

I've probably have to much cream as well, I was thinking of using my Vitamix to make butter, but then I need creme fraiche for Thanksgiving dessert anyhow. Have you ever tried making it with buttermilk?
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/ ... che-106036

Hi,

I have made creme fraiche with buttermilk as described in your link. In fact when we were at Joan's last week, I was tasting the creme fraiche brought by pie lady. I thought the taste was similar enough, though it might have been thicker than mine.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:Hi,

I have made creme fraiche with buttermilk as described in your link. In fact when we were at Joan's last week, I was tasting the creme fraiche brought by pie lady. I thought the taste was similar enough, though it might have been thicker than mine.

Regards,

I haven't tasted it yet, but it was no longer liquid after an overnight and I left it out a bit longer. I'm excited. Will serve it on Thanksgiving with the grape tart I'm making. Oooh, aren't there recipes for creme fraiche ice cream ;D.

It has a layer of airy bubbles on top and underneath is deliciously thick, creamy and subtly sour deliciousness.

This was easy as pie!